April 21 Launch & pre-purchase on Steam

Posted by Andres Bordeu, Mar 19 2009, 03:25 PM

Zeno Clash is just around the corner! It's been a long journey, but we're finally reaching the end of the road; Zeno Clash will launch through Steam and Direct2Drive on April 21. At ACE Team we want everyone to be able to enjoy our title, so we're running a great promotion for those who wish to pre-purchase the game:

Zeno Clash will be available for 50% off its regular price for the first 24 hours of the pre-purchase period, starting Thursday, March 19 (8 pm GMT) up to Friday March 20. After that the game will continue to be available for 25% off its regular price up to the launch on April 21.

Jump to the link if you want to read about the incentives that encouraged us to offer a low price:


A little background behind the pricing:

Why did we decide to go with a 20 USD price? When a new developer has a new IP that is testing the waters they will want as much people as possible to play their game. Making a good name for your studio and getting people to know your work is the most important thing when you are just starting out.

When we released the first videos of Zeno Clash we got some great feedback from the community. Many people thought Zeno Clash wasn't an indie title and it would come out for $30 or more. We also read many forum posts that said that for $30 it was a definitive purchase. $30 seemed like a fair price point for us, since our game is about 5 hours of single-player campaign, plus the survival mode, featuring some novel gameplay mechanics and incredible art to go with it. But $20 seemed like a better starting point since many indie games are sold at that price, so it made sense to be at the same price value.

After we announced the $20 price point it was really surprising for us to read some forum posts that expressed that the price was too low, and that they would have gladly payed more. I think the best thing we can say is that if anyone feels unhappy about this you can always purchase an extra copy and send it as a gift to a friend .

One thing that influenced setting the price is the geographical advantage of developing the game from Chile. The cost of life in Chile is cheaper than the cost of life in the United States, so the investment we had to make was smaller than what a similar company would have had to invest if the game was developed in the USA.

In Chile we also depend on the fluctuation of the dollar, the euro and other currencies, which can be good or bad for us. But since we don't depend exclusively from the dollar we can sell the game for the same amount in all regions. That is why we've decided not make a 1 to 1 conversion between euros and dollars. We've tried to keep a similar price between regions. We don't want people in Europe having to pay extra for our game.

So to wrap up things, our biggest interest is to reach the largest possible amount of consumers. We want the undecisive to give it a go. And that is why we are offering great promotion for the pre-purchase period. I think that after we launch anyone will agree that Zeno Clash has a great production value at a great price.

If you have any thoughts regarding this tell us what you think! Don't be shy and drop a line in the comments. Remember you can also visit us at our newly released Steam forum where we will be discussing everything Zeno Clash related with the fans. Visit our space at the official Steam forums here:

Zeno Clash at the Steam forums